I like how on this thread "being in schools with lots of minorities" is implicitly being linked with "being in failing schools."

I don't think anyone wants to equate them, but if we look at results, that's the way it's going, and people here are reacting to it. Some negatively/prudently, some hopefully/against the norm.

We have a huge gap in educational attainment at adult levels between upper class DC and lower class DC, with nobody in the middle, and we have neighborhood segregation to match. Adult educational attainment and child expectations go hand in hand. Nobody in this whole Fing country seems to know how to produce good outcomes for families with poor educational attainment for adults, except in anecdotal individual cases, which are great stories that don't count for shit.

In Mount Pleasant and nearby, there are not many places where low-education and low-income families live any more. The neighborhood has changed over. Their educational program is dual language but they aren't Title I any more next year.

In my opinion it's a bigger deal that we get our children with poor expected outcomes to 'normal' than that we get those with good expected outcomes to 'optimal.' That cuts against my own kids. Yours too probably.

But if we want any reason to expect a better future, it's probably important to look at this the way the Principal does, with an eye toward strengthening her programs and securing lower-income family participation toward the future. At this point, dual language at Oyster is just a bonus, it doesn't really help anybody succeed. Bancroft could be the same way soon without intentionality on this. It's important that we as the haves center the have-nots.

I hope these views add to what you might think about this topic.

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Anonymous wrote:Do kids at any of these schools have another non-bilingual school they get IB preference for (including in the ECE lottery)?

Why would get a preference to another school? They already get a guarantee to a specialized program that the majority of other DCPS students can never access. Bilingual schools should be citywide. But if you are wealthy enough you can buy into it.

I actually asked because if they had IB preference to a different school in ECE, I think it would eliminate some of the concern over be systematically disadvantaged in this school's lottery.

That’s a great question and the DCPS policy actually speaks to it directly. The alternative monolingual school option is only available for compulsory grades, meaning K and up, not pre-K.

I’m not sure what you mean by those systematically disadvantaged, but in general the alternative schools are less in demand than the bilingual schools, so there aren’t a ton of families that opt for, say, Tubman instead of Bancroft. And by kindergarten everyone IB will have the right to enroll in either school, so it’s really just two years of pre-K which aren’t guaranteed anyways.

By systematically disadvantaged I meant competing for only a small percentage of seats. I actually wonder what the justification is for giving them auto-access to another school in K but not a lottery advantage for ECE (or at least the choice to pick the other school to exercise your IB preference at in the lottery).

K is compulsory. PK is not.

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This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.


Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

What I would question, though, based upon the principal's obvious antipathy to the non-Latino parents (especially the affluent ones) is whether the preferences are being used to maintain a successful bilingual program or whether the ECE preferences are really being used to keep one particular demographic dominant in the school. Her comments, ill-considered as they were, would suggest the latter.

The children of the affluent white parents in the neighborhood can attend in K.

+1. Seriously, we’re talking about pre-K here. Most Ward 3 schools don’t even offer pre-K, and many EOTP parents don’t get seats at their IB either.

They actually all offer PK4.

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Anonymous wrote:


This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.


Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

What I would question, though, based upon the principal's obvious antipathy to the non-Latino parents (especially the affluent ones) is whether the preferences are being used to maintain a successful bilingual program or whether the ECE preferences are really being used to keep one particular demographic dominant in the school. Her comments, ill-considered as they were, would suggest the latter.

The children of the affluent white parents in the neighborhood can attend in K.

+1. Seriously, we’re talking about pre-K here. Most Ward 3 schools don’t even offer pre-K, and many EOTP parents don’t get seats at their IB either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.


Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

What I would question, though, based upon the principal's obvious antipathy to the non-Latino parents (especially the affluent ones) is whether the preferences are being used to maintain a successful bilingual program or whether the ECE preferences are really being used to keep one particular demographic dominant in the school. Her comments, ill-considered as they were, would suggest the latter.

The children of the affluent white parents in the neighborhood can attend in K.

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Anonymous wrote:Why do white people complain so much?

Because if one thing has been made crystal clear after visiting this site for years, the vast majority of white people posting here do not want their kids in a school with a lot of minorities. It’s like white people are still dealing with school integration. It’s absurd. All this hand wringing and complaining over boundaries and obsessing over test scores is ridiculous.

People,of any race do not want their kids in underperforming schools. Period. Rich people have more options. In DC the vast majority of wealth in held by whites people. And it’s not disgusting to mention the socia and financial capital to schools. We were at a title 1 achool that barely had a functioning PTA, now at high performing DCPS with annual bustier over $200k. This mo ey makes a huge difference in outcomes for underperforming kids on the school. It pays for tutoring, class aids, supplies, field trips etc.

^^And while it might not matter with the current court, it’s why based on existing precedent, a poor AA IB kid denied a lottery spot is the perfect plaintiff. “Those people” can’t afford to live in the neighborhood, she said.

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Anonymous wrote:


This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.


Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

What I would question, though, based upon the principal's obvious antipathy to the non-Latino parents (especially the affluent ones) is whether the preferences are being used to maintain a successful bilingual program or whether the ECE preferences are really being used to keep one particular demographic dominant in the school. Her comments, ill-considered as they were, would suggest the latter.

Yes, I posted about the animus issue earlier and this is exactly it. There may be a rational basis for this type of policy, but that doesn’t mean it is the actual justification for the policy in question. Discriminatory intent matters for a lawsuit and these comments are… ill-advised to put it mildly.

Anonymous wrote:


This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.


Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

What I would question, though, based upon the principal's obvious antipathy to the non-Latino parents (especially the affluent ones) is whether the preferences are being used to maintain a successful bilingual program or whether the ECE preferences are really being used to keep one particular demographic dominant in the school. Her comments, ill-considered as they were, would suggest the latter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I think people should think about the coherent future of a dual language program where the entering students are generally not bilingual. A program like this has to be skewed toward function or ends up futile. Privileging the minority language is important.

This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.

Native speakers are the key to a successful program. You are 100% right here.

Anonymous wrote:So I think people should think about the coherent future of a dual language program where the entering students are generally not bilingual. A program like this has to be skewed toward function or ends up futile. Privileging the minority language is important.

Finally. This is it exactly. In order to be a successful dual language, you must privilege the minority language. As someone else mentioned, this is a big reason the bilingual charters are seen as weaker in the target language, because they are not allowed to do this.

Anonymous wrote:
So I think people should think about the coherent future of a dual language program where the entering students are generally not bilingual. A program like this has to be skewed toward function or ends up futile. Privileging the minority language is important.


This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.

That's not what this is. Bancroft was not created to be a dual language school because that was the desired pedagogy, like a YY or Stokes. Bancroft was designated dual language out of necessity because at the time of designation, the majority of the kids attending were from low income (thus the Title I) Latino families. Powell was the same. Giving an OOB preference for Spanish speakers in ECE allowed DCPS to essentially funnel all of its ESL kids into a select few elementaries in the name of efficiency---otherwise how to account for the fact that Powell was majority Latino while Lewis (formerly West) stayed majority AA?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do kids at any of these schools have another non-bilingual school they get IB preference for (including in the ECE lottery)?

Why would get a preference to another school? They already get a guarantee to a specialized program that the majority of other DCPS students can never access. Bilingual schools should be citywide. But if you are wealthy enough you can buy into it.

I actually asked because if they had IB preference to a different school in ECE, I think it would eliminate some of the concern over be systematically disadvantaged in this school's lottery.

That’s a great question and the DCPS policy actually speaks to it directly. The alternative monolingual school option is only available for compulsory grades, meaning K and up, not pre-K.

I’m not sure what you mean by those systematically disadvantaged, but in general the alternative schools are less in demand than the bilingual schools, so there aren’t a ton of families that opt for, say, Tubman instead of Bancroft. And by kindergarten everyone IB will have the right to enroll in either school, so it’s really just two years of pre-K which aren’t guaranteed anyways.

By systematically disadvantaged I meant competing for only a small percentage of seats. I actually wonder what the justification is for giving them auto-access to another school in K but not a lottery advantage for ECE (or at least the choice to pick the other school to exercise your IB preference at in the lottery).

I see, thanks for clarifying. It’s because DC has a system of by-right schools based on address. So for kids that are zoned for schools that are fully bilingual, there’s a second by-right school they are zoned for once they’re in a mandatory attendance grade (K). There is a universal pre-K program in DC, but since it’s not a mandatory grade, there is no requirement to offer an English only option. They could certainly offer an IB-like preference for the designated alternative school in pre-K, but then families would use that option for pre-K and then switch to the bilingual school in kindergarten. That would cause churn in the monolingual school, and make it harder for other families IB for that school to get a pre-K seat. So at some point the decision was made not to give that preference and here we are. I think if there was a sizable cohort of families opting out of the bilingual schools, the cost-benefit would be different since families would stay at the monolingual school for elementary, but when the monolingual school is less desirable, families will just use their two free years of pre-K then bail.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do kids at any of these schools have another non-bilingual school they get IB preference for (including in the ECE lottery)?

Why would get a preference to another school? They already get a guarantee to a specialized program that the majority of other DCPS students can never access. Bilingual schools should be citywide. But if you are wealthy enough you can buy into it.

I actually asked because if they had IB preference to a different school in ECE, I think it would eliminate some of the concern over be systematically disadvantaged in this school's lottery.

That’s a great question and the DCPS policy actually speaks to it directly. The alternative monolingual school option is only available for compulsory grades, meaning K and up, not pre-K.

I’m not sure what you mean by those systematically disadvantaged, but in general the alternative schools are less in demand than the bilingual schools, so there aren’t a ton of families that opt for, say, Tubman instead of Bancroft. And by kindergarten everyone IB will have the right to enroll in either school, so it’s really just two years of pre-K which aren’t guaranteed anyways.

By systematically disadvantaged I meant competing for only a small percentage of seats. I actually wonder what the justification is for giving them auto-access to another school in K but not a lottery advantage for ECE (or at least the choice to pick the other school to exercise your IB preference at in the lottery).

Anonymous wrote:So I think people should think about the coherent future of a dual language program where the entering students are generally not bilingual. A program like this has to be skewed toward function or ends up futile. Privileging the minority language is important.

This is something that the bilingual charters struggle with as their popularity increases. Look at Yu Ying and Stokes French posts for how much families complain about the quality of the language program because there aren’t sufficient native speakers. A by-right bilingual school HAS to have a language preference in early grades to let in OOB families and sufficient dominant families, or it will be impossible to maintain the quality of the program.